


The Past Haunts Us

by CountTashtag



Category: Original Work
Genre: Don't Like Don't Read, F/M, I got a B so it can't be that bad, Implied/Referenced Character Death, My friends made me post this, Please Don't Hate Me, This was my assignment, peer pressure sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 08:07:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26469940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CountTashtag/pseuds/CountTashtag
Summary: Blood. Red and thick coated every surface. Iron filled the air. The creature looked at his claws blood and all, he proceeded to lick the life-giving juices. The tang felt sweet, dare he say heavenly as he ran his tongue along his already wet fangs. He’d never cared for the taste of human before.  Now it somehow seemed to satisfy some dark pleasure from within.





	The Past Haunts Us

Castle Tenebris stood proud against the dark shadows of the low hanging sun. Walls of dark stone strong and unyielding. Black ashes and scorch marks. Scars of the victor. Smaller towers endeavouring to contend with the centre 60-foot torrent extending to the heavens. Any land not taken by the keep held the ghost of an expansive courtyard. Barron trees swayed to the wind hallowing through empty corridors. Dark clouds overhead a common occurrence here in western Romania. No servants hurrying about their daily tasks. No sentries standing on guard alert to the slightest disturbance. Not even a mouse staked these cobwebbed halls. Silent. Hollow. Mirthless. Just how he liked it. A residence as dark and desolate as his very soul.  
The master of the house resided in the upmost room of the central tower. The highest a man could be, surveyor of all of those beneath him. A cliché perhaps but one always had their preferences, and this was his.  
The master bedroom was simple and practical. The room’s singular small window was nonvisible through the thick curtains chosen for their practicality rather than appearance. As such no natural light filtered through. Only a lone candle illuminated the dusty cold stone walls and lifeless wooden floors. A room devoid of any wrath or feeling, much like its sole tenant.  
The sound of creaking oak filled the room, breaking briefly the gloom and silence. The room had been cold and bleak before. Now it could be only described as frozen and barren.  
The master had risen and with him an eerie chill had once again fallen upon the estate. It stewed as he dressed, bubbling and brewing. Ready.  
It followed him as he descended the staircase from his chambers.  
The man was effortlessly handsome; with a complexion of snow, hair rivalling night, eyes as deep and vast as an ocean’s deepest chasm. An unearthly beauty, for an unearthly man. He saw no need for frivolous attachments with any self-severing, hypocrites that called themselves men.  
A recluse in the purest sense.  
But not with her. No never with her.   
The master found himself standing outside the homeliest room in the house. As if the mere thought of her had processed and drawn him to this very doorway.   
The tall windows were kept shadowed by long drapes that reached to touch the high ceilings, where hung a chandelier, lifeless and dark, as if they’d never been any light here to begin with. Just as there hadn’t been any since the Countess had been taken from him so prematurely. Without her the grounds would never again know light, know laughter, know love and know life.  
A biting chill ran through the corridor from the window he turned to. The Count pulled the edges of the dark cloak over his shoulders.  
The Count’s figure settled, reaching out to the old glass pain when a flickering light caught his eye. A small trail of torches, winding in and out of the extensive shadowing of the towering beast. “Villagers,” he sneered. Castle Tenabris overlooked the tiny European village beneath in its entirety. An intrusion of filth milling about their day declaring themselves bringers of light and justice. In reality they were all slaves shackled by ignorance and depraved ravings. He had time before his guests, unwelcome as vermin, were expected to arrive.   
After all, it wouldn’t do for a Count to turn away dinner.   
With the window shut, he looked back to her room. It was as lifeless as his pale skin  
Paintings hung on the walls unattended. No longer important. Irrelevant as the accumulating dust throughout rooms. He was just as blind to them as he was deaf and numb to the world. He had not hung them for himself.   
The Count’s pace became more frequent as his casual stroll bleeds into a brisk walk. He had better things to do with his day then stand about lamenting, it would accomplish nothing.   
Again, his feet had had a mind of their own.  
This room was dark. The count walked over to the candelabra and lit the wicks.  
A soft light emanated from the old and rusted piece, to show a long box. Oak, polished and thick. A painting hung on the wall behind, of a female of slight build. A pale face framed by silken dark locks.  
The Countess’ death had not been taken lightly. It was as if the grounds themselves mourned her departure. Suddenly all that warmth and light was gone. Drained. Vanished. Now the castle was even colder than before, never again to glow with the warmth of her presence. For the estate had known that warmth and could never truly return to its former glory.  
Already pale knuckles hung tense at the Count’s side in a fist. His face unchanging baring the slight narrowing of eyes.  
She was gone. That’s all there was to it. No earthly power could change that. The priests in the village preach of prophets and saviours, of a world where all pain is suffered with reason and need. The Count did not believe in such a world. Pain occurred because mankind was destructive by nature. If, for but a second, they thought they could benefit from another’s pain they would not hesitate to inflict wave after wave of agony.  
“I love you, Amelia.”  
His soft words were the sole evidence of life to be found within the castle walls.   
Rats dens left cold and unattended. Cobwebs fraying, their seamstress fled. Such bareness of life was not even limited to within the castle walls. Nest and hollowed trunks decaying, rotting. No longer were there leaves to fall and show the change of seasons. Only the dead, hollow husk of a once vibrant and loved garden.   
Everything was half dead if not entirely. The lifeless extensions of the once beautiful were cracking and snapping under the careless foot of the villagers on their quest to the door.  
Their knock was thundering and their call deafening.   
“We know you’re in there monster! Be gone unholy demon, back to whist you did come. Your whore is as dead as is the devil’s spawn she carried.”  
Monster. His posture rigid. Eye’s seething as the world turned red. Her blood red lips as they sipped blood red wine out of silverware studded with blood red jewels. Blood. Her blood staining the earth. Her blood spilled so carelessly across her so carefully maintained courtyard. Her blood red roses ripped stem from stem had lay shredded around her. Her pale dress ran blood red down her butchered frame. Her life taken so violently that the fear etched on her face would forever haunt him.  
His fists tightening further, in anticipation of the blood to be spilled.  
He looked up to her face on the wall. Then back to the coffin he knew her form to lie within.  
His feature schooled and calm.  
“I will be but a moment my love.” He promised as he pressed his cold lips tenderly to the box.

In a flash of light, the count stood flinging the massive wooden doors open at speed. Eyes wide, cold and unforgiving. Standing tall and proud, poised like a tiger staring down its prey. A growl caught in his throat. His pure unbridled anger, his power rolled off of him in waves.   
The villagers retreated if only a few steps, confidence gone backing up to escape, to be spared unlike the few who now lay unconscious, if lucky, against the cold and unforgiving stone walls. Holding them captive under his steely gaze he took strides forward as the villagers began cowering back further. Beads of sweat began forming. lips and legs began trembling. Blood pumping so hard chests constricted under the strain.  
These humans were afraid. The pathetic lice outside his door that dared call themselves men were afraid, and, in their fear, they were destructive. Fear contagious as the plague. A plague that had consume everything loving and bright in his life.  
They would regret.  
Eyes locked on the villager, brave or stupid, at the front.  
“You, humans will pay. For what you’ve done,” he spat out the word human as if it were akin to poison. Panning those deep and vengeful eyes over the crowd he continued, shouting as if to ensure the entire village would know what was to transpire here tonight.  
“If it is a monster you seek, then a monster you shall have. So declares the Master of Castle Tenabris. The Count of southern Transylvania. The monster you all seek.” Each title harsher than the one before.  
He bared his sharp canines as his spoke with dark conviction.  
“So says the Vampire.”

* * *  
Blood. Red and thick coated every surface. Iron filled the air. The creature looked at his claws blood and all, he proceeded to lick the life-giving juices. The tang felt sweet, dare he say heavenly as he ran his tongue along his already wet fangs. He’d never cared for the taste of human before. Now it somehow seemed to satisfy some dark pleasure from within.  
Blood was blood. Animal. Human. He’d never seen any difference. They tasted the same. It was only recently the count had learned the fine line between the human and the animal.   
Savages all of them selfish and conceited. Squandering all of that around them for their own gain.   
The alpha in a wolf pack would protect those he considered his own, fighting off any attacker. The sick and injured would be care for until they could once again fight alongside their brethren. There was more decency among a pack of wild animals than there was honour between men. The phrase was not every beast for himself.  
It had taken him hours, days perhaps even weeks, every second an eternity, but he’d come back from the madness and savagery. A madness first incurred when he’d seen splayed on those cold unforgiving stones that she’d once imbued with warmth.  
Her blood had spilled seeping into the disturbed soil of her garden. Her pride and joy.  
Death brought new life. The nutrients of the body returned to the earth and began life anew. Their sins washed away with the coming of the rains.  
The garden would likely flourish under its new fertilizer. He’d see to it.  
Her garden, her memory would live on.

**Author's Note:**

> Tenebris - shadow or darkness (latin)


End file.
